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Hansel: Nightmare
The kid woke him up in the middle of the night by landing in his bed as if he'd been thrown. Hansel scrambled for his trident, then remembered that the clerics had taken it from him before they'd agreed to let him spend the night at the Eldath Sanctuary, then realized it was just Jonn, anyway, clinging to him. “What the hell, Jonn?” he mumbled fuzzily, patting at him vaguely in the dark with some intention of making sure he wasn't hurt or anything. “I'm sleeping here,” the kid informed him in a tiny, muffled voice. Hansel's instinct was to say all right and go back to sleep, but something told him that probably wasn't enough. He didn't know shit about kids. He was moderately sure he still was a kid. But if Jonn had just wanted to spend more time with him -- and he knew the kid did, even a year after Hansel had dropped him and his sister off here, and he didn't fucking get that, either -- well, he'd've probably just tagged along to Hansel's room in the first place, right? He'd been doing it all day already. Something must have happened. Then he thought of the old Mother and the scars on Jonn's arm. If he had to kill another fucking cleric -- all right, it probably wasn't that. “Uh. You have a bad dream?” he guessed. Jonn nodded against him. Okay. Well, that made sense. The kid had been through some shit. He couldn't really help with it, though. “All right, well, you can sleep here, but I gotta head back out tomorrow, you know?” he said. The kid made a nonommital grumbly sound he had to’ve picked up from Hansel, which was a little funny, but also probably not a good sound for a kid to make. Hansel pushed himself up, letting Jonn shift to sit in his lap, and fumbled to click on the little lamp by his bed. They both winced at the light and he rubbed at his eyes and cleared his throat before blinking the kid into clearer focus. “All right.” He scooted back to lean against the wall at the head of the bed, rolling his shoulders to settle in and tugging on the kid gently. “You wanna tell me about it?” He thought he remembered his mom offering that once or twice when he’d woken up with nightmares. He wasn’t sure what good it was supposed to do, really. Jonn leaned into him, resting against his chest. “No,” he said at first, then, “I dunno. Maybe.” He was quiet for a while before finally speaking again. “It was about my parents.” He'd never talked about them -- not before Hansel had left, not in any of the letters they'd exchanged while Hansel had been at sea. Hansel had told the kid about his parents, as uninteresting as they were, but the kid hadn't taken it as an opening to share. “Yeah?” Hansel said, feigning only mild interest. There were a lot of orphans in Skyport -- there were a lot of orphans all over -- but these were the only orphans whose circumstances he was invested in now. It felt like he should know a little bit more about them. Jonn nodded, and he thought Hansel might have shut down for a beat, but then he added, “It was about how they died.” “Oh. You don't … Uh, you don't have to talk about it.” He suddenly wasn't sure he wanted to know, and his curiosity felt morbid. His parents were very much alive -- well, the human ones he knew, anyway. It didn’t seem right for this kid to have gone through something he had no grasp on as an adult. And selfishly, he felt suddenly guilty for not writing to his mother more often. Or … well, at all. Then the kid said, “Someone stabbed them,” and Hansel forgot about his own parents entirely. Something about the way Jonn said it -- just completely flat. “Oh.” Should he ask who? Or why? How long ago? Had Jonn seen it happen? That did seem like something you’d have nightmares about. Fuck, he probably shouldn’t have let Jonn and Luci be in the room when he’d killed the old Mother. There hadn’t really been time to fretfully shoo them out once he’d confronted her about the scars. Also, none of these questions were appropriate, but he didn’t know what he should say instead. “Oh,” he said again, which probably wasn’t the right response the scond time around, either. The kid just shifted a little, curling closer against him. Without thinking about it Hansel wrapped his arms around him more tightly. He was so goddamn small. Still scrawny from living on the streets -- Hansel couldn’t help still wondering how long that had been. Maybe it was the kind of thing that just never went away, like the marks on his arm. Hansel stared at the wall and wondered if his parents were doing okay. He wondered if it made him a bad person that he’d never once considered going home, never even sent a letter back. Jonn would probably kill to be able to go home. Shit, maybe literally -- he hadn’t been fucking around when he’d glared up at Hansel and threatened to slice him open if he ate Luci. Remembering that made him smile a bit. Vicious little punk. Luci had been plump and healthy then. “Hey, Jonn,” he said thoughtfully, “how long were you taking care of Luci by yourself?” Maybe that was a tactful way of asking. “I dunno.” It seemed like an automatic, defensive sort of response, and after a moment he reluctantly said, “It was … all summer, and then winter.” “It was summer when I met you.” “Oh. I guess I lost track.” Luci was only about four, now -- three when Hansel had met them. He couldn’t take care of an infant now, much less when he’d been nine or ten himself. He wouldn’t even be able to take care of Jonn, and the kid clearly had that pretty well handled on his own. Maybe he should try to get better at this kind of thing. Stop killing people in front of kids. Shit like that. There were probably more commonplace pitfalls when it came to being around kids, but on the other hand, that one seemed like one he might repeat. He was a goddamn pirate, not a nanny. Maybe a dad. Maybe some day. Nah -- he shook the idea off before it could take root. “You took really good care of her all that time.” Jonn was quiet for a little while. “She’s important.” A pause. “No one else was going to protect her.” Hansel swallowed and wondered how Leigh was doing. It’d been eight years. Maybe he was married now. Maybe he had a kid. Maybe something had happened to him. Fuck, he was a shitty older brother. Leigh probably hated him. “Yeah, I bet she’s gonna be your biggest fan when she’s older,” he tried weakly. “Do you think she’s gonna remember what I did?” He didn’t want to say no. “S’okay. You’ll still be here when she’s old enough to remember.” The kid shifted again, pressing his face into Hansel. He said something Hansel couldn’t make out. “Hm?” He was quiet. “Nothing.” Was he supposed to pry or leave it alone? He kind of had to pry -- in a gentle, leading way -- to get anything meaningful out of Jonn, but he didn’t want to go too far with it. What would his mom do? Probably nothing. She’d leave it alone. He left it alone. Jonn spoke again anyway, but changed the topic. “Why can’t you stay longer?” “I gotta work. Pirates don’t get days off.” “Then can I come with you?” “I …” Again, he didn’t really want to say no. It seemed cruel. Instead, he blurted, “Fuck, kid, why would you want to?” “Don’t wanna stay here.” “I can’t take care of Luci on a pirate ship,” Hansel tried. “I’ll take care of her.” “No, I mean -- Jonn, it’s fuckin’ dangerous.” He straightened a little, nudging the kid to pull away from him. He looked sleepy, and grumpy, and a bit betrayed, but his expression changed when Hansel cuffed his sleeve up to show a jagged scar on his shoulder. “I got knocked off my ship and a fuckin’ fish about took my arm off.” He pointed to another, dangerously close to his throat. “Helm paladin got me with an arrow.” The one on his cheek, faded now. “Look, I don’t even remember how this one happened and it’s on my goddamn face.” He realized he should stop because Jonn looked fascinated instead of horrified. “The point is I can’t protect you out there, all right?” he said hastily. “I’m barely protecting myself.” Jonn studied him for a moment, like he was being sure he was serious, then sighed sullenly and slumped against him, his arms going around Hansel’s neck. “Why would you want to protect me?” he muttered. “What?” “No one else has.” His fingers toyed with the tattered neck of Hansel’s shirt, like a nervous tic. “What makes you so fucking different?” “Hey, don’t swear,” Hansel said reflexively, and in an undertone immediately added, “Eh. Whatever.” Then he processed the question. “Look, I’m not -- I don’t know. You needed help. You’re a kid. Someone’s supposed to be looking after you.” “My parents weren’t.” “Oh.” Again, that was probably inadequate. “Hey, you know how I’m a half-orc?” he said, not sure how to start what he was trying to say. Jonn was silent for a moment, his tone very sarcastic when he answered, “Yeah.” “Don’t be shitty. My mom’s a human. I don’t know who my dad was -- I never met him, he might be dead now.” Seemed likely, really. If nothing else, old age caught up to orcs fast. “But my mom’s human husband, my stepdad, he -- he took care of me anyway.” Hansel had always been sure to make himself useful on the farm. Grew up fast, and stronger than a human. It made his presence more tolerable that he was a good worker, made up for Leigh being sickly. But telling Jonn that wasn’t going to make the point he wanted to make. “What I’m saying is -- I don’t know -- look, it doesn’t matter about your parents,” he said. “I’m taking care of you now. I know I can’t be here that much, but I’m -- I’m gonna do what I can.” Again, the kid was quiet for a while. When he did respond, Hansel pretended to not hear the tremble in his voice. “‘Kay.” Hansel pretended not to notice his sniffle, either. He was a tough little shit. He probably wouldn’t like having a moment of vulnerability pointed out. “Can you tell me about -- when your fell off your ship? What kinda fish was it?” It was kind of a relief to move onto something he understood. He’d told this story plenty of times -- and it didn’t involve his mother, or either father, or the baby brother he’d abandoned. Just a fish that wanted to devour him. Much easier to deal with. “Fuckin’ nasty kind,” he started. “Good eatin’, though. So …” Category:Vignettes